Then there’s Surrey, where a third of its residents are under age 25. It is expected to swell to 633,000 by 2026 from the 395,000 measured in the AIMS survey. Surrey’s phenomenal growth rate, and the resulting commuter traffic, has proved one of the greatest headaches not only for its mayor, Dianne Watts, but for Corrigan, across the Fraser River in Burnaby—and for those caught in the perpetual traffic jam that is the Trans-Canada Highway, linking Surrey to Burnaby and Vancouver. “It’s kind of an Achilles heel,” Cirtwill says of Surrey’s transportation scores. “Their spending is a little bit above average and what they’re getting as a result is a little bit below average.” Watts is acutely aware of the problem. When she spoke at a recent Vancouver breakfast meeting of real estate developers, she set her alarm for 4:45 a.m. to make the commute. Each morning traffic from Surrey and further east in the Fraser Valley crawls across the overwhelmed Port Mann bridge and spills into Burnaby, choking its streets en route to Vancouver. “It drives our community crazy,” says Corrigan. “It’s the biggest source of complaints.”
The long-term solution, both Watts and Corrigan agree, is for Surrey to move from a commuter suburb to a self-contained community, a transformation already in the works. “That’s why we’re concentrating on making sure we have jobs for our residents so they can stay within the city,” says Watts.
Meantime, though, the two mayors squared off over a provincial commitment to build a larger 10-lane replacement bridge over the Fraser. Watts supports the multi-billion-dollar expansion on behalf of her car-bound constituents. Corrigan opposed it, winning no friends in Surrey, or the provincial government, but plenty of support at home. Corrigan is so adept at reading the local mood that his left-leaning Burnaby Citizens Association won every council seat last fall. (The party has held the council majority for 24 years.) The resulting lack of suspense may be to blame for one of the worst municipal voter turnouts in the country, 26 per cent, earning Burnaby an F for effective governance.
Corrigan doesn’t mind. He’s still beaming after ushering the students of St. Helen’s School out the door with a handshake, and souvenir pencils and pins. Such visits make politics “real for them,” he says. “It takes away a lot of fear. I think kids, especially, want to know there’s stability around them, there’s structure around them.” It seems their parents value that, too.
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